The sound reverberated through the streets. I dropped to my knees, the metal in the synth-leg clanging against the metal walkway. The bullet had entered between the third and fourth rib, penetrating the layer of inlaid titanium armour. I knew I didn't have much time left. I could feel the oil from my implants and my blood mixing and pouring down my chest.
My executioner stood before me, laser sight trained on my skull, ready to put me away for good. I had to act fast.
"Now, now, sweetie, don't do anything rash." He flashed a smile, showing off his...
It was a picture to burn.
His arm was wrapped around her waist and they were cheek to cheek, grinning like fools at the blank eye of the camera. Her arms were flung around his neck, a laugh frozen on her lips as they stood, all dressed down for a summer evening together, in her driveway.
She carefully held it to the candle flame and watched the smooth paper blacken and burn. Watched the image slowly eaten away to ash that fell like dark snow over the candle.
The dusting of ash of what had been her life: lies, broken...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. I can't see him, but I know he is there, and yes, it is a he. The collar of his shirt flaps soft with the night air, and the breadth of his hands dwarfs the whole space. I don't move, but it's not because I'm scared. I just don't want him to know that I know. That he's there. I don't want him to leave. His keeping watch while I sleep, a sort of volunteer sentryman, comforts me like my father's stroking my hair. Maybe it was my father who dispatched...
"I hate everyone today," he said.
"Everyone?" she asked.
"Everyone."
"Even me?"
"Well, except you."
"Glad to hear it."
"I hate everyone else, though. And everything else."
"Do you hate black people?"
"Well, no - I mean, yes, but no more or less than anyone else."
"How about Indians? Or Lithuanians?"
"I hate everybody equally. I'm not a bigot or anything."
"I see."
"But I still hate them. I hate all of them."
"That's nice, do you hate animals, too?"
"Yes. I hate animals, too."
"Even kittens?"
"Um ... I guess. I hate them all."
"Well, that includes kittens. How...
Millions. It seemed like it anyway, the number of people that were lining California's streets in the 60s and 70s. "Making it" or trying to... Rebelling, singing, pan-handling, and trying to fit in. Half-clothed, non-clothed boys and girls (we couldn't call ourselves men and women, we were only 15 and 16 most of us). We were in a revolution. Haight/Ashbury was the center of it all, at least for us. The LSD had its hold on some of us, others were fine just being thousands of miles away from where they grew up, just to feel "free." San Francisco changed...
When I woke up this morning, I knew it was going to be a good day. No groggy moans coming from my body as usual. A little tense in the hips, but nothing a good stretch won't fix. I got up with my girlfriend and made for the breakfast cereal. I worked on my cover letter for a new job application and my girlfriend made the breakfast. "I sure hope this works," I say as I hit send. The job is a definite, but I got into some trouble with the law a while back and my newly acquired bad...
The water was clear. The Captain held the glass aloft for the crew to see. So far, so good. The riotous lot seemed somewhat calmed by the sight. It was purely a temporary respite.
"Aye, for sure it *looks* clean," said one of the braver sailors. "But I can't merely believe that won't poison us all just like what was in the barrels before. And, beggin' your pardon, we can't be drinking no seawater, no matter what fancy magic you do to it."
The Captain sighed. The two sailors lost to the poisoned water had caused an uprising, it seemed...
If I had a camera every time he did something like that, I'd be winning contests. Funniest Kids, Giggling with the Stars, stuff like that.
Henry bought me the camera when the baby was six days old. He was supposed to be picking up the Chinese take-out (I loved those pancakes back then), but he stopped by the camera store. Not Wal-Mart or some big box store. No, Henry spent the extra forty-seven minutes to go to some specialty place.
I was painfully post-partum, couldn't sit without that donut, and he was buying an SLR. Like I was going to...
The dream was better than waking. I floated, all the past troubles seeming to dissipate before my very eyes. Luke was nowhere to be seen, which was a relief, because in days past he had haunted my dreams mercilessly. I noticed that there was no one else in my dream, just a thick, white mist. Like a feather bed, i laid in the unusally substantial mist, in a mystical dreamlike state. I saw a shape, a dark figure coming through the fog. It was Nyxie, my facility director. Her red hair floated like me, but she kept to the ground....
Within sight.
A new future within sight. Fresh hope, fresh starts.
Leaving behind everything we know and everything we hold true and dear, taking a chance on this foreign alien land because we have to. Because we have no othe choice and no other hope.
Who decides rights? Who decides the boy gets an education and the girl gets survival? Without the girl there would be no Decider.
Why does she take the front seat? Why must they lounge inter luxuries of lands which are not theirs?
A family exists elsewhere. Speaking another tongue and wearing a different skin does...